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ptahrrific) wrote2025-06-16 01:40 am
no one could blame you - the April 2023 draft
Started the file on January 15, 2023. Wrote a bit more in March (which led to posting in this "the last 3-5 lines you've written of something you're working on" FFA thread), then in April. Stopped on April 26.
A year later, I figured this draft might be an interesting artifact! So I made a copy of the file and started editing the new version, leaving this as-is.
(I poked at the new version on-and-off through 2024...then put it away completely in September, because I switched focus to With All The Madness In My Soul, and didn't want to mix the continuities up. Didn't come back and finish it until April-May 2025.)
Mid-2023 was long before I finished writing Here's What You Missed. I knew the Regent's Park Hex would eventually forge a permanent bond between Wanda and the Knights, but I hadn't gotten to the part of "the news figures out Marc is in the Hex, and Elias comes to investigate." So this Elias hasn't looked into Wanda at all. He's vaguely familiar with her from general Avengers News, but doesn't recognize her on sight:
With a woman -- his wife? Elias has never met Layla, and the pale-skinned woman with dark reddish hair doesn't look Egyptian, but there's something oddly familiar about her.
"Marc?" he asks. Cautiously. Trying to project that he's willing to use a different name, if his son has changed it. If he's going by Steven now, or...or anything else.
Marc just nods.
"And...you must be Layla?"
"Layla's outside," says Marc shortly. His arms are crossed, all his body language closed-off; he isn't even looking in his father's direction. "If we need to make a quick escape, she's the getaway driver."
Is he saying that as a joke? A test? A straightforward statement of fact? Does he want Elias to laugh, or be offended, or...?
"I'm Wanda," says the redhead, standing to offer Elias a hand (her nails are painted, the same vivid red as her lips, and her jacket) and a polite smile. "I'm a friend of your son's. Here for emotional support. Sit down, please...Mr. Spector? Rabbi Spector?"
"Just Elias, please," says Elias, accepting the handshake and the invitation with relief. If Marc is accepting help from a "friend," that has to be progress, right?
Marc turns to Wanda. "You see that? He thinks you're a nurse. Or a social worker, or something."
"I didn't say that!" protests Elias.
"I wasn't looking, but I believe you," says Wanda -- directing it at Marc. To Elias, she just says, "We actually work in the same field. That's sort of how we met."
"It is?" That's a little nerve-wracking. Elias doesn't know, exactly, what "field" Marc has worked in since the military...let him go. He hasn't wanted to ask.
...yeah, I hadn't finished Come In From The Night at this point, either. This Elias hasn't seen Layla photos, and doesn't have any Moon Knight suspicions.
When we get to Jake's debut, these lines are pretty much unchanged:
"I was...on leave, at the time. Bereavement. You see -- I had recently lost my sons." Wanda folds her hands on the tabletop, looking evenly into Elias's eyes. "I wasn't handling it well...I was isolated, and struggling...your son happened to have a job in the area, we ran into each other...and he convinced me that that was something I could get help for, so I didn't end up hurting anyone."
Marc bursts out laughing.
"Holy fuck, Wanda!" He doubles over, slapping the table, wheezing with mirth. "Shots fired, across the bow, right out of the fuckin' gate! Too bad you're not gettin' paid for this, you woulda earned the whole fee right there."
He sits up enough to get a look at Elias's face, grins with all his teeth, and flashes a get a load of this guy smirk at Wanda. Her own face is eerily still and unblinking, except for the ghost of a fond smile.
"Now he's thinking, 'maldicion, the mood swings are back'."
"I didn't say anything," protests Elias.
"I think we can all admit, that is what it looks like," points out Wanda. To Marc, she adds, "Should we get straight to the point, then, you think?"
"Mmmm...yeah." Marc props his elbow on the table and rests his chin in his hand. "Guess we better. Go for it."
But then there's this whole extra tangent where Wanda has to reveal that she's magic, and do a bunch of exposition on how her magic works, and Elias has to catch up to realizing that, right, she's that Wanda.
Also: the magic process is "I will make a mental link, which needs permission from both of you." This universe hasn't established the "I will give the boys broadcasting ability, which only needs their permission" process yet, because I haven't written the Reveals By Knight Holiday Spectacular yet either!
(Good thing I finally realized I wouldn't be able to finish this properly in 2023, huh?)
"All right." Wanda turns her eerily-steady gaze back on Elias. "Look...there's a reason the boys asked me to join them, not anybody else."
(The plural pings Elias right away. He doesn't know what to make of it, he just hears it.)
"Think of it as -- if you wanted to have a talk with someone who was deaf, they might bring a sign-language interpreter, right? Because the way they communicate isn't something you can understand. I don't mean that as a judgment. It's just not a skill everyone has."
"With you so far."
"Well, I can be a sort of interpreter."
She holds up one hand, twirling her fingers...
...and little waves of red light ripple over and through them, coalescing in a nebulous ball of scarlet energy at her fingertips.
As Elias gapes, the dishes on the table start -- rearranging themselves. It's one musical number away from going full Beauty and the Beast. His water glass lines up with Marc's, the silverware shimmies out of the napkins, the fork tines lock together while the knives and spoons frame them, and with a series of clinks they build a little bridge connecting the two cups.
"I can make a connection between your minds," says Wanda pleasantly. As if she just drew a diagram on a napkin or something, instead of doing a round of casual telekinesis in the middle of a diner. "It won't let you read each other's thoughts. Nothing goes over the bridge that you don't send. All it does is make sure you can receive everything the other person is sending."
"You're magic," breathes Elias.
"Give the guy a medal," mutters Marc.
"Hold on, hold on..."
The nagging sense of familiarity clicks into place. He hasn't seen her with Marc. He's seen her on the news.
He presses against the backrest of the bench, as if leaning a few more inches away from her is going to protect him. "Wanda? Are you -- Wanda Maximoff?"
Wanda closes her hand over the wiggly red glow, snuffing it out. "...Yes."
"Sokovia Accords, Wanda Maximoff?"
"She's got a lot more practice since then," offers Marc.
Elias isn't done. "Westview Anomaly, Wanda Maximoff?"
Wanda grimaces. "I'm doing much better now."
Elias has no context for "Marc and Wanda are friends," no background for "Wanda is over her Supervillain Phase," no forewarning at all that Marc would be bringing DID headmates to the party...
Yeah, this was way too much to dump on the poor guy all at once. Way safer and healthier all around in the final version, where Marc and company didn't just give Elias a chance to do research beforehand -- they insisted on it.
If half the articles Elias has read about that are true -- hell, if a tenth of them are -- "Have you done something to Marc?"
"Oy!" says Marc, sitting up straighter. "You're gonna ask her that, not even lookin' at him?"
"If she is mind-controlling you, would she let you answer?"
"...huh." Marc shrugs. "Fuck me, that's an actual good point."
Wanda puts a hand on his arm.
"There is no mind-control here, and there isn't going to be," she tells Elias firmly. "I do have a connection open with the boys already...just for communication, so we can speak privately, if we need to. And, full disclosure, I am editing the audio and visuals coming from this booth, so the other diners won't be bothered if the conversation gets...alarming. But no mind control. You are free to leave at any time."
"And with all that, we still trust her more than we trust you," adds Marc. "Which is a helluva review of your parenting skills, ay?"
"Who's we?" asks Elias, dizzy and confused and tired of pretending he isn't noticing these things. "Who are the boys, here?"
Wanda flips her wrist, opening her hand around a knot of scarlet plasma, like a stage magician un-palming a quarter. "I can show you. If you'll let me."
"And if you don't wanna, that's fine." Marc jerks his head towards the entrance of the diner. "Door's over there."
*
He expects the switch to be dramatic. A sci-fi holodeck transition, or a cascade of fantasy sparkles, or objects to start glowing, or something.
As far as he can tell...nothing changes? They're still in the booth. Still surrounded by the diner. He's still sitting across from Wanda and Marc --
Elias does a double-take.
He's across from three Marcs.
One Marc is still sitting in front, leaning on his elbows and smirking. His bomber jacket switched from tan to black, and instead of a blue V-neck shirt underneath it, he's got a button-down with a tie. Crisp and neat, in contrast with his face, which suddenly needs a shave.
A second Marc stands behind him, arms crossed tightly in front of him like they were when Elias first came in, face aimed at the window. He's wearing an off-white hoodie, and his hair isn't just gelled back, it's actually cut that short.
The third Marc stands with the second Marc, holding him gently around the waist, chin resting on his shoulder. This one is wearing the blue V-neck, hair loose, long enough to show how it curls...and he's gazing at Elias with steady interest, like he's watching a well-done nature documentary.
The first exchange between Elias and all three visible headmates!
...I think every individual line in this was carried through to the final version? But they got rearranged, and there are new details/thoughts in between. In particular, final-version Elias brings in lots of the new info he's tried to internalize from the DID research he's done.
Elias meets Marc-in-blue's eyes, and gives him a little wave, just from the wrist.
Marc-in-blue's eyebrows jump. He doesn't exactly smile, but he waves back, and gives Marc-in-white a nudge.
Focusing on that one, Elias guesses, "Marc?"
Marc-in-white glances down at him. "Okay, points for that."
"Ahhh, lucky guess," scoffs Marc-in-black.
Neither of them has the cute British accent he always used to do in Steven Mode, so...Elias turns back to Marc-in-blue. "Does that mean you're Steven?"
"It does!" exclaims...Steven, apparently. "Would you look at that? Wasn't just luck -- there was some deduction going on, there. Nicely done."
His smile is all kinds of encouraging. Elias dares to return it, before moving to Marc-in-black. "And...do you have a name?"
"Do I have a name," echoes Marc-in-black, dripping with sarcasm.
"Oh, c'mon, it's a fair question," says Marc. "Some of us showed up without 'em."
"Yeah, but he doesn't know that!"
"Does that mean -- it's more than just you?" asks Elias carefully. "There are other parts in Marc's head?"
All three Marcs flinch.
"All right, down a few points there," mutters Steven. "It's not just Marc's head, yeah? It's all of ours."
"And this is everyone you get to talk to," says the last guy. "And don't call us parts."
"I'm sorry," says Elias. "What's...what's the politically-correct term?"
"Alters," says Marc, in the same breath as Steven says "Headmates," and the other one says "Fucking people."
...okay, Elias had been picturing them all taking turns, thinking Marc could only "be" one persona at once. The idea that they can all talk over each other is -- unexpected.
The first time the Knights responded to somebody with the "alters / headmates / people" trifecta in CoK continuity was way back in Stars That Had A Different Birth. You guessed it, I wrote this version of the scene first.
Next, a really short version of the reveal of Jake's name. The final one has a lot more satisfying details.
(I ended up making "Jacobo" his full name in this universe -- I remember wanting the more Spanish pronunciation for the name Wanda breaks out in chapter 3 of HWYM. Used "Jakob" in All The Madness instead.)
"It might help him personalize you if you gave him your name," says Wanda gently.
"Fine, fine, he can have a hint," says Marc-in-black, rolling his eyes.
(Elias still doesn't feel great about a stranger, let alone Literally Wanda Maximoff, being involved in this family conversation. But if she's on his side, sort of...and if she's this good at managing the "person" in Marc's head who keeps snapping at him...maybe it's okay.)
"Look, you gave your kid two names, ay? Me and Marc sorta...divvied them up."
Middle name, then, or Hebrew name? Could go either way. Elias figures he has a fifty-fifty shot at it. "Jakob?"
"Close."
"Oh, come on, he deserves full credit for that one, Jake," says Marc.
"Like you ever did enough schoolwork to know how credit works, loquito," counters...Jake.
"You did fine in school," protests Elias. "I mean, you had struggles, but you always got the work done."
"What Jake means," says Steven, "is that, as far as we can tell, I'm the one who got us through school. Well, I'm the nerd who got us through academics, and they're the jocks who got us through gym."
"We are sugarcoating the fuck out of this," mutters Jake, leaning back against the two men standing behind him. "Sure. Gym. That's what I was for."
In easy sync, Steven and Marc take seats on either side of him. (The mechanics of it -- how the bench was always there, but didn't stop the men from standing behind Jake, and now it's the same size, but has room enough for all of them plus Wanda to sit -- make Elias's head hurt if he tries to think about it too closely.) "One thing at a time, babe," sighs Marc, while Steven rests an arm over Jake's shoulders and Marc drapes his own over Steven's.
I don't even remember why I had them standing at first. Pretty sure it's easier to picture the action if all the Knights are sitting most of the time, and the narration just has to keep you up-to-date about who's in the middle.
The "do I have new sons?" part of the conversation. Another one that's much shorter, because there's no Wanda-provided visual montage of "Steven and Marc and sometimes Jake hanging out together as children." I do have part of that written, later in the draft! For whatever reason, I hadn't figured out it should go here yet.
Most of the lines here stuck around in the final version, they got woven in around the nice savory montage...although I did leave out Jake's bit of "we got everything but incest" snark. He's got enough things to be tense and angry about.
Lined up in a row like this, the differences in their postures and expressions stand out more, though they look strikingly similar underneath. "If you're not parts," says Elias slowly, "should I think of you more like...triplets?"
"Sort of," says Steven with a grimace -- again, at the same time as Jake growls "Fuck no," and Marc says "Not like that."
Not like what?
"Look, it's a helpful analogy," protests Steven.
"Yeah, but we're not brothers," says Marc.
"Practically the only bit of damage we don't have, thank Khonshu," agrees Jake.
Thank who? And -- how would that be damage?
Steven sighs. "Look...think of me as Marc's childhood best friend, all right? The kind of friends who practically lived in each other's pockets. Any time he wasn't over at my house, I was over at his. Whole neighborhood would've joked about how you picked up an extra son."
"If one of 'em was a girl," adds Jake, "the neighborhood joke woulda been that they were definitely gettin' married when they grew up."
"That too," says Steven. "And I probably called you 'Dad' a few times, just out of reflex. But...you're not actually my father, no."
"Okay. All right. I understand," says Elias, who isn't sure that he does. "And -- you? Jake?"
"No way in hell are you my dad," says Jake. "And I was the troublemaker from the wrong side of town that they weren't allowed to play with."
Steven waits like he's expecting a follow-up to that, but Jake doesn't elaborate.
"You...weren't really taking Marc to other parts of town, or other people's houses, right?" asks Elias eventually. "It was always ours?"
"Physically, yes, it was the same house," allows Steven.
"And...not-physically?"
"Oh, come on, Dad, you can put that together," snaps Marc. "Mentally, when I went over to play at Steven's house, I was safe."
It's Elias's turn to flinch.
In the final version, this is where we get Steven's "do not yell at Jake on our behalf" boundary-setting. Then the chapter ends on a cliffhanger about Avenging.
Chapter 2 is the "Moon Knight's origin story + various Avengers team-ups" montage, the "Wanda remembers fighting Thanos" interlude, and the "btw they're autistic" conversation, ending on a cliffhanger about the zombie mission.
Chapter 3 is the "what happened on the zombie mission" montage, some conversation about the abuse, and Elias's first attempt to watch the private Wendy montage, ending on a cliffhanger when he reacts badly and Wanda puts him in time-out.
In the early draft...this is where the writing goes straight into Elias vs. the Wendy montage. (Several of those other scenes are at least partially-written, but we'll circle back to them later.)
"May I...?" asks Wanda, leaning forward.
Marc and the others nod, and Steven gives her a little go-ahead gesture.
"Thank you." She turns to Elias. "The boys aren't entirely sure how much you remember, about their childhood. You wouldn't have had multiple souls to divide the memories between, the way they do...but you went through traumatic experiences of your own, and adults can still...repress things."
"I didn't." He swallows. The details aren't something they need to get into, right? He can still admit the general shape of the problem. "I wish I had that excuse, believe me. But I don't. I know...I knew...that Marc wasn't...safe."
"I see." Wanda tilts her head, like a bird studying a treat it's about to snap up. "They'd like to show you something. Would you be willing to watch?"
She puts an object on the table between them.
It takes Elias a second to recognize the chunky case of a VHS tape. The cover insert doesn't have a title or any real art, just a bone-white pattern that looks like bandages. Like you'd put on an artsy special-edition release of The Mummy.
"I haven't had a VCR in twenty years," he says, baffled.
"It's not a real tape. It's a...convenient physical metaphor." Wanda drums her fingers on the cover, red nails clicking against the plastic. "It's memories. A short montage of them. Only a few minutes, total."
"We had full editorial control," adds Marc. "Wanda just cut it together."
"She's quite good at that!" chirps Steven. "Got a real eye for it."
"When you open the case, the memories will start playing," says Wanda. "You can leave it open until they get to the end, or close the case at any time to make them stop. It's entirely in your control."
"Except for the part where you can't walk away with it," says Jake grimly. "You watch it here, or you don't watch it at all."
"And...you do want me to watch it?" asks Elias, looking from Marc to Steven. "You're sure?"
Steven just turns to the others. Jake glares. Marc nods: "We're sure. Whenever you're ready."
*
-- he slams the case closed,
"Five whole seconds," says Marc bitterly. "Wow. Didn't even make it to the shower thing."
"It wasn't -- she wasn't like that," protests Elias. "She wouldn't do that!"
A chorus of groans from the other side of the table.
"All right, all right, not totally unexpected," soothes Steven, trying to regroup. "Not like I took it much better."
"Sometimes, when you're grieving, when you're not well...you do things you wouldn't do," says Wanda. Her fingers are steepled under her chin; a low Sokovian accent creeps into her voice. "Sometimes you try to escape your nightmares by giving them to someone else."
Jake just scoffs. "I say we hit 'im again," he says, sharp-edged and icy. "Harder, this time. Until he learns."
-- and in that second he sounds so fucking much like Wendy that Elias's vision tunnels, heart pounding in his ears.
Steven's hand snaps to Jake's shoulder, clamping a fierce warning into the black leather of the jacket. Marc's breath quickens, a sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
"No," says Wanda firmly.
She touches Marc's temple -- there's a flash of red light, and he takes a deep, steadying breath -- then leans over to do the same for Elias, whose sight stabilizes almost immediately.
"Not like that. We're not doing that."
"Y-you said no mind control!" stutters Elias.
"Wasn't mind control, mate," says Steven. "That was all chemical. Instant magic Xanax.
"I didn't know..." Elias stares at Jake. "You sounded just like her."
Jake's eyes go wide, white rings around his irises, pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
Then he's halfway over the table, fist swinging --
*
The fist slams against a solid wall of red light, so dense it muffles the thump almost to silence.
Elias spends a moment just heaving for breath, glasses askew on his face, fake VHS case still clutched in a white-knuckled death-grip.
He can't see much through the wall, and when he settles enough to re-adjust the glasses, he realizes it's not just his eyes. The barrier is made of static and old-fashioned TV scan lines, turning everything on the other side into a blur. Three figures are struggling -- maybe Steven and Marc restraining Jake? -- but he can't make out the details.
The power is Wanda's, right? If she can do this in the blink of an eye, why wouldn't she be holding Jake back herself?
Does the punch mean that it was Marc's physical body leaping at him? Or is this still all in their heads?
Should Elias leave?
He looks around...and realizes with a start that he couldn't, even if he wanted to. The red walls go all around him, a blocky six-sided box with a lid on top, bigger than a phone booth but smaller than an elevator.
Jake isn't the one being restrained. He is.
"Doooon't go anywhere!" exclaims a voice out of nowhere -- a man Elias has never heard in his life, unnaturally chipper, like a TV announcer. "We'll be right back, after this!"
*
A lot of that text is already in its final form! It just needed much better/more-extensive setup.
This is where the draft starts to get disorganized. I don't have a fully-written scene for the Jake-Marc-Steven conversation that ended up in chapter 4, just these chunks of notes:
"We're still covered, right?" hisses Marc over his shoulder.
"Anyone outside this booth sees a completely ordinary background conversation," says Wanda. "Nobody will come close enough to hear that the dialogue is mostly 'rhubarb' or 'peas and carrots'. Yell as much as you like."
"Where the fuck does he get off, saying I sound like her?!"
"Jake...?" Steven cups Jake's jaw in his hands, savoring the rasp of the stubble against his soft palms. "Did you not do it on purpose?"
"Wh...what?"
"Because you sounded exactly like Mom," says Marc. "That little snarl, the extra bit of oomph at the end -- buddy, you nailed it, I still have chills. Were you seriously not doing that to fuck with Dad?"
"No!" yells Jake, face going ashen. "I was just mad! Why would I pull a stunt like that in front of you? I didn't -- I wouldn't --"
"Hey, shhh, it's okay." Marc ruffles Jake's hair. "I'm good. Steven's good too. We got the world's best fake mom and her magic-Xanax looking out for us. We're fine."
"I didn't sound like that at the synagogue -- did I?"
"Not like that, no," hedges Steven.
"What's that supposed to mean? What the fuck did I sound like?"
"You sounded like you when you're angry!" cries Steven. "I don't remember enough of Marc's mum being angry to know all the ways that sounds!"
"What are we talking about?" asks Marc. "What happened? Why was Jake angry at a synagogue?"
Before Steven can figure out a diplomatic way to say bad guys were closing in on Dad, and Jake wanted to let them, Jake dumps the whole memory on Marc. Complete with Steven begging him to switch, and Jake digging in his heels until almost the last second before giving in.
"You did what?" yelps Marc.
Jake is full-on shaking now, but he braces himself for whatever blow-up Marc is gonna have...
"Jake." Marc pulls him closer, voice cracking. "Jake, babe, come here."
Then Jake is collapsed against him, sobbing against his chest, while Marc drops kisses on Jake's hairline and Steven kneads soothing circles into Jake's back.
"Thanks," whispers Marc, catching Steven's gaze. "For stopping him. You were right -- I would not have coped if you didn't stop him."
"I'm--" Jake hiccups. "'Msorry."
"Shhh. It's okay. You let Steven stop you, right? You did the right thing."
Steven's focus slides sideways, at the cylinder (or whatever you call it when the outside has six faces) with Dad -- with Marc's dad -- still inside. He nudges a thought at Wanda: He's got air and everything in there, right?
Wanda has drawn her legs up in front of her and is hugging her knees, but she looks calm and un-stressed other than that. "Elias Spector is fine. He has fresh air. He's not uncomfortably hungry or thirsty. He is concerned, but not panicking. He..." She gives her fingers a twirl. "...will not need a bathroom break any time soon."
"Wow," murmurs Steven. "Cheers, Mum."
"You're being careful not to call me that in front of him, right?" asks Wanda. "Not that I mind, but I think he'd be...confused."
"You're the one who keeps calling us 'the boys'," says Steven lightly. "But yes...that would absolutely wreck the 'one thing at a time' plan."
*
Quick throwaway note for a follow-up scene that I didn't end up writing at all, in favor of having Marc take the lead on comforting Jake:
"Where's Wanda?"
"She's invisible."
"Seriously..."
"Oh, I'm dead serious," says Steven.
(Wanda is giving Mom Hugs to little Jake, under the cover of invisibility.)
And then, a bunch of chunks of conversations with Elias, in no particular order.
This is the stage of drafting that has a lot of "okay, I want this moment to happen somewhere, but I haven't figured out how/when to integrate it into the flow of the conversation yet."
Includes one exchange between Wanda and Elias that I ended up completely dropping. Again, to keep the focus on the Knights leading the conversation -- Wanda is here for emotional support, she's not here to confront Elias for them.
(...I did indulge the idea of "supportive friends team up to confront Elias on the Knights' behalf" in You're Not Alone, as a therapeutic dream sequence. Which also includes the real Wanda psychically showing up in the dream, and getting a crash course in "you can go too far in trying to help them, and end up being anti-helpful in the process." That fic was at least partly-written in mid-2023...but the Wanda part might have been written after this.)
"Most of those memories were Jake's. That was what he did. Little me smiled and did all my homework and watched movies and laughed at jokes and didn't remember a single one of the things that made little Marc daydream about jumping off the roof, little Marc ran and hid and cleaned everything up and still took hits all the time, and when he couldn't take any more of them, little Jake swapped in and took the rest."
"At least he doesn't think Marc's possessed," says Steven. "Bright side?"
"I am sorry about that," puts in Wanda.
"Oh, that wasn't aimed at you!" exclaims Steven. "Sorry! No, I was talking about me. Thought Marc was possessing me, once upon a time. Could you do the visual aid, please?"
"Certainly." Wanda generates a projection, a slide made of glittery red lines, of cells dividing. "When you start with one embryo, and it splits farther than usual, you get twins. We say identical twins because they have the same genes -- but it's only the genes. They're each a unique, individual person. Started as the same being, but now they're not."
*
"Would you mind telling him it wasn't his fault?"
"Wh--you mean Wendy?" asks Elias. "Of course! Of course that wasn't your fault, Marc. She wasn't well, she..."
"
Smooth as a jump-cut, Wanda is sitting in the enclosure next to him.
"The boys need a minute away from you to process that," she says evenly.
"I don't understand," protests Elias. "Of course it wasn't Marc's fault. He was so little -- neither of them was breathing when they -- hospital kept him for weeks after -- how could he think it was his...?"
A new setting appears around them. It doesn't have the immediate, visceral feeling of the memory montage -- if anything, it feels flat and artificial. As if each of the hex's six walls is displaying the view in that direction like an IMAX panel.
Elias figures out from the guests that it must be Randall's shiva. His own memories of it are mostly a blur.
They're watching from the steps, which means he sees Wendy on the couch, sees the back of whoever's kneeling beside it to comfort her...
The past-Wendy starts to shake, and points at the viewer -- at Marc? The man beside her turns to look, and, oh, there's past-Elias. Holding her hand, trying to calm her down, as she yells:
You were supposed to keep him safe! You let him drown. This is all your fault!
The scene spins as the camera (as Marc's head) turns and starts to run -- and the whole thing freeze-frames, on a shot when everything is blurred with motion.
"The boys would like to know," says Wanda, "and I quote, 'what the fuck you think that was about, then'."
"I told Marc she didn't mean it!" cries Elias. "Maybe he doesn't remember, but I did tell him that. So many times!"
"Did you tell him she was wrong?"
He did. He must have!
...Didn't he?
"And even if you had," continues Wanda, "why would he have believed it -- when you showed him, every day you didn't take him out of there, that he had done something to deserve this?"
Elias tenses up, expecting another flash of something traumatic and horrible -- but it's just little Marc climbing onto the school bus. It's a middle school spring day, which means he's wearing a T-shirt and huge cargo shorts, and he looks sulky but fine. No cuts or bruises or anything.
He slides into one of the empty bench seats, tattered green upholstery held together in more than a few places with duct tape, and gazes morosely out the window.
Another boy slides into the spot next to him.
Elias does a double-take -- it's a little doppelganger of Marc. Almost. There's something different in the line of his jaw (sharper?), the shape of his ears (smaller?) (Marc always had Wendy's ears). Also, his clothes fit better, and the colors are brighter.
"Hi!" chirps little Steven. "I finished the book last night, and, good news, the dog does not die -- do you want to borrow it, or just have me tell you how it ends?"
"Mrmph," says little Marc, fingers brushing the side of his face.
...It's not rounder than Steven's, it's just swollen.
"Ooh." Steven winces. "What happened? ..wait, does it hurt to talk? All right, I'll guess. Did you get a ball to the face during practice?"
"Uh-uh."
"Walk into a cupboard?"
"...Mmhmm."
"Gosh! Hard luck," cooes little Steven. "You want the ice pack out my lunch?"
Little Marc indicates, with some miming and emphatic grunting and a few careful words, that it's Steven's lunch, he should keep it cold.
"Don't be silly. I can have lukewarm carrot sticks for lunch one day, I'll survive."
He pops open his lunch box -- it's Star Wars themed while Marc's is plain, but inside is the same PB&J, sliced vegetables, and juice box Elias used to pack for Marc. When he had time. Before Marc insisted on doing it all himself.
"So...the book?" asks Steven, once Marc is holding the ice pack to his face.
Marc waves for him to go on.
"Right! Okay, well -- you remember how, in the beginning, there were supposed to be two boys switched places, but it accidentally ended up being three...?"
"We made Stuff Dad Says bingo cards. One for each of us."
"...what else is on them?"
"We can't give you hints about what is or isn't on them! That would be cheating! We have to win based on what comes up naturally."
"Ooh, that's probably the autism," says Steven.
He breezes by it so casually, Elias almost misses it. Then does a double-take. Did he hear right? "You're not--"
Three sets of eyes snap to him, as all three men freeze.
Slowly, Elias says, "Is that on the bingo cards?"
"Stop asking us what's on the bingo cards," says Marc sharply.
Okay. With that tone of voice from Marc, it probably is. Elias takes a mental step back, and tries to recalibrate. Why was he saying that? What was he trying to gain? What did he really mean?
"You were evaluated for that by a doctor, when you were younger," he says at last. "They said you didn't meet the criteria. Maybe they do different evaluations now, or maybe they changed the criteria, but that's what they said at the time."
Stunned silence.
"...that still counts, right?" says Jake, ignoring Elias to look up at the others.
"It absolutely does not," says Steven. "It's not the same thing at all! That wasn't a reflexive denial, that was intel -- and intel we want to have, I might add."
Marc gives him a narrow look. "Intel you want to have."
"Fine. It's all me." Steven turns back to Elias. "When were we evaluated, exactly? And why? I mean, what were the signs that made them look?"
Well, if the details are getting him this excited, Elias will dredge his memory for as many as he can. "First time it came up, you were...two or three, must have been...you weren't very social, which is fine, but there are these language milestones, and you weren't hitting them. Your pediatrician said that happens sometimes with kids who are raised bilingual -- it's not that you're delayed, it's that you have more speech to process. We should give you a few years, and if we're still worried, check again then."
They had given Marc a few years. Sure enough, his speech came in. And it wasn't as if he was hurting himself, or couldn't explain when he needed something, or got so overwhelmed they couldn't take him places...
Might not have thought anything more of it, except then they had two-year-old Randall, enthusiastically chattering at them in baby-talk Spanglish.
"You caught up on the language thing, but there were still...concerns. You had a way of shutting down around new people or big crowds...would get really frustrated over little things...in first grade a child psychologist sat down with you." Elias shrugs, spreading his hands. "She told us everything was fine. That some kids are just like that."
"I mean...some kids are just like that," agrees Steven, unoffended. "Sometimes it's because they're the autistic ones." He turns to Marc. "You remember any of this?"
Marc shrugs. "Not a bit."
Elias bristles. "You think I'm lying to you?"
"Oh, calm down," says Jake. He might be a little offended. "We check in with each other about memories, on account of how we don't all share the same ones, because of the goddamn dissociative disorder. Remember?"
"I thought it was more like...Marc had these roles he would put on. Like wearing a costume. Or moving around a puppet."
Jake snorts.
"Don't you even," says Steven -- and there's a sudden weird blurring, where he's sitting at the table, his image overlaid on Jake's -- their shared arm picks up the glass of water and dumps it over his head.
Then it's just Jake sitting, shaking off his curls and spitting like a wet cat. "Hey! I didn't say a word!"
"No, you just thought a bunch of words directly at us," says Marc.
"Somebody was making a highly inappropriate sex joke about puppets."
"Don't yell at him," blurts Elias.
Another of those moments where the guys all freeze. Steven looks affronted, Marc looks angry, Jake is unreadable.
In the blink of an eye they switch places. Steven's at the table, leaning forward on his elbows, while in the background Marc puts an arm around Jake's shoulder. (Are they standing in a weird way, or is Marc...taller?)
"All right, here's a boundary we're going to set, right here, right now," says Steven firmly. "You are not here to protect me from Jake. Understood?"
"I..."
"We take care of each other. We protect each other. If any of us actually steps out of line, that's for the rest of us to tell them, and for you to stay out of it. And Jake would rather take a bullet to the heart than let either me or Marc get hurt. Ask how I know."
He shouldn't yell at them, though.
"So you can bloody well stop looking at him like that," says Steven, once it's clear Elias isn't going to ask. "You can't keep to your lane, we're walking out of here. I mean it."
Isn't that Elias's whole failing, though? That he didn't look? That his son(s) were being hurt, and he turned away, he didn't intervene? So shouldn't he...?
"No," says Wanda, locking eyes with him. Out of nowhere. Sharp and cold.
But isn't it time for him to make up for...
"No," repeats Wanda -- and the temperature around them drops. Not figuratively, either. Dew forms on the outside of all their mugs; Elias's glasses fog up.
The guys are all looking at her now.
"Wanda," says Marc, a low warning.
"I am not interfering with his mind," says Wanda, in a thick Sokovian accent. "I made a promise. I will not. I am simply telling him, in words, where your boundaries are. If he respects them, that will be his choice."
Steven grimaces. "You've got a wiggly-woo out, Wanda. We can see it."
"...yes, but not for him."
"For what, then?"
Wanda twists the swirling red tangle of light balanced on her fingertips. "You fiddle with your Rubik's cube, I fiddle with the fabric of reality."
With a start, Steven notices he's been twisting up the ends of his sleeves. "Huh."
If one of us is in danger, the rest of us will protect him. If by some chance we all end up in trouble, our reality-warping bestie will handle it.
I did at least settle on "all of those exchanges have to happen before Khonshu yoinks Elias."
So the partly-written scenes I had with Khonshu and Elias, which ended up in chapter 5 of the final version, are relegated to the end of the early draft. Starting here.
He's somewhere dark and quiet, with tall stone pillars and a starry sky and heaps of sand.
When Wanda disperses the shield, the bench is...empty.
"What's this?" asks Steven. "Wanda? Where did you put him?"
A small frown purses Wanda's lips. "I did not."
She's playing with spirals of scarlet energy before Steven can figure out what to ask first -- how is that possible, it was supposed to be safe, did he get lost, did someone take him (but who?), was there a new extremely-localized Blip --
"Khonshu is having a word with him." Wanda's eyes glow red as she gazes at something Steven can't see, maybe something on a whole other plane of existence. "Shall we go and fetch him, or would you rather leave them to it?"
Steven sighs. "Suppose we'd better step in."
*
Elias turns slowly on a gritty layer of sand, taking the new place in. Stone walls. Caved-in ceiling. Massive statue with crossed arms and features too weatherbeaten to make out, at the top of a row of stone stairs.
Did Wanda decide to change the scenery? But there's nothing sitcom-inspired here. No conspicuous hexagon shapes. Not even anything red, unless you count what looks like a smear of dried blood on the steps...
"Hello, Elias Spector."
Elias backpedals so hard he falls over -- into a heap of sand, or else he probably would've broken something.
A figure steps out of the shadows, easily fifteen feet tall, in long flowing robes and holding a towering staff.
Baruch atah Adonai Elohenu, melekh ha'olam, dayan ha'emet --
Three masked figures in white drop from the sky to land behind the monster, two in flared capes that give them crescent silhouettes, all landing in three-point stances with military precision. Elias has a vivid memory of news footage of Loki, summoning the first wave of his army of Chitauri...
Then the non-caped figure falls over with a soft "oof," while the middle one stands and orders, "Khonshu! Knock it off."
It's Marc.
Their masks and hoods disappear as they stalk forward to get between Elias and the towering figure. None of them show a flicker of concern. They're different enough that Elias thinks he can ID the others on sight -- Steven in the plain suit, shoving the robes aside with his foot so he doesn't step on them, and Jake in the more superhero-looking one, stepping on them.
"Do not let him intimidate you," says Steven firmly. "He is extremely dramatic, that's all."
He offers a hand up. Elias is too frozen-in-fear to take it.
Jake crosses his arms and looks sternly up at the massive skull. "Thought we had a deal, paloma. You said you weren't gonna interrupt."
"I did not interrupt your conversation," booms Khonshu. "You were talking amongst yourselves. You had put him aside."
A collective groan from his Avatars. Steven throws up both hands in exasperation. "This rules lawyer! Absolute bloody nightmare, I swear."
Marc gives Elias a quick once-over, then turns back to Khonshu. "Can Dad still hear us all? I mean, is Wanda's psychic thing still working in...whatever plane of existence you've dragged us to this time?"
"This is my place of power. He can perceive all of you here. By my will, not hers." The giant raises his beak toward the open roof. He doesn't point the staff, or even raise it, but his grip on it shifts. "It is...curious...that you were even able to come here."
One last figure sits on the broken edge of the stone, heels dangling casually over the edge. Some parts of her outfit seem to be glowing. Others melt into the night sky so completely, it's almost invisible when she shrugs. "Your Avatars invited me."
"Of course."
"So...if she never boxed him up and shoved him aside, what was your plan?" asks Jake. "Wait until he went home, scoop him up then?"
The old god huffs, put-upon. "I wished to speak with him."
"You wished to scare him, is what you wished," says Marc.
"Looks like you got that." Steven plops down on the sand next to Elias, chin resting in his hand. "Good job. Well done. Can you let him go now, please."
"It is as I told him," says Khonshu solemnly. "Any god who wants him is welcome to come and claim him."
"Uh-huh," says Jake, unimpressed. "Are you tryin' to make a point, because...listen, we're all used to the Rabbi's god not showin' up for stuff. Could give any number of more-deserving folks he didn't show up for."
"Could give you about six million he didn't show up for," mutters Marc.
"Could give you half-of-all-Jews-in-the-universe he didn't show up for," agrees Steven. "Khonshu...if you want us to appreciate you more, there are less dramatic ways to go about it, yeah?"
Somehow that's what trips Elias's voice back on. "A-appreciate?"
Everyone looks at him.
The bit of Hebrew I put in there was a blessing for hearing tragic news. By the time I circled back to finish this, I had researched a whole range of blessings/prayers/psalms for All The Madness (with plenty of help and advice from Mcufaninmydreams), so I had much better ideas for what Elias could say.
fanfarrón = show-off, loudmouth.
At this point, "having a God-off with Elias's god" is the actual idea for what Khonshu wants, here. I didn't shift to "wait, hold on, he really just wants to have a Dad-off with Elias" until later. (A challenge, for anyone who wants to accept: count how many "Khonshu having ever-increasing Dad Vibes towards Marc-and-company" fics/chapters went up between April 2023 and the final version of this fic.)
Early-draft Elias, for his part, is written with zero context for who or what the Moon Knights are. Poor guy.
Next, a version of the "what god do we call to get Elias out of here?" conversation:
"Any god who claims him may take him out of here. And I don't claim him."
"What does that mean?" asks Elias. "Steven? ...Marc? What does it mean?"
Sand swirls in the breeze from Marc's cape as he spins and closes the distance between them, crouching in front of Elias so they're about at eye level. "It means, don't panic, okay? You might have to sit tight while we call in some favors."
"Shouldn't take long," says Steven -- not reassuring Elias, all his attention is on planning with Marc. "Taweret would go for it, easy."
"Taweret is a goddess of women, children, and a substitute goddess of the dead," rumbles Khonshu. "A living adult man is unlikely to fall in her jurisdiction."
"First you say any god, now we have to worry about jurisdiction?" complains Steven. "Hardly seems fair."
"The rules of etiquette among the divine are old and many, Steven Grant. I could not hope to explain them all. You would hardly be able to track them if I did."
"Pretty sure you're underestimatin' Steven's hyperfixations," says Jake.
Marc sighs. "I mean, yeah, but maybe let's not test that right now."
"Sure." Jake is joining them, boots crunching on the sand, stopping on Steven's other side. Doesn't come all the way down, though, he stays on his feet. "We could call Thor? He likes you."
"Uh..."
At first Elias assumes the hesitation is because "Thor, founding Avenger and Prince of Asgard, even remembers who Steven is, let alone would take his calls" sounds ridiculous.
"...not sure it's in his jurisdiction either."
"Yeah, maybe, but he knows people..."
Jake trails off as the light around them changes. The silver moonbeams pouring down on them warm into a neon pink, then a vivid red.
Wanda descends in the center of the spotlight, slow and graceful. She's wearing a whole new outfit, Elias realizes: carved tiara, long jacket that trails behind her, heeled boots that click gently on the stone when she lands at the top of the dais. Swirls of red sparkles rise up around her with an elegance that would make a Disney animator weep.
She gives Khonshu a polite bow, which he returns, graceful as a diplomat. "Little witch."
"Scarlet Witch." Her Sokovian accent is out in full force, thick over the words. "There is a prophecy. I am not sure if you've heard."
"Nexus Being." Khonshu stares her down. "Embodiment of Chaos magic. With the power to create your own worlds. With the power to destroy them."
She sharpens her accent back to American. "...and I use it to make breakfast for dinner."
"You would claim godhood, Scarlet Witch?"
"Can she just...do that?" asks Marc hoarsely. "Is that how gods work? Can anybody do that?"
"Anybody? No," says Khonshu. "Her? ...If she chooses."
"You took that man from my barrier, when I wasn't paying enough attention to stop you," says Wanda. "I feel like I should take some responsibility for bringing him back."
"You have done!" exclaims Steven. "You found him, you brought us here -- we can work out the rest. Honest, Wanda. No pressure to do anything you're not ready for."
"Counterpoint," says Jake, "she looks extremely cool and badass right now, and should totally keep doing that."
"Okay, hold up." Marc stands again. "What exactly are we talking about, here? Not sure I'm okay with the prospect of somebody Avatar-izing my dad."
"No! No no no no, absolutely not!" says Wanda, holding up her hands. "I am not at a place in my life where I'm looking for an Avatar relationship. I promise."
She trots down the steps, passing the trail of dried blood without looking at it, murmuring a quick thanks to Khonshu when he sweeps his robes out of her path.
"That would not be necessary," admits Khonshu, sweeping his robes out of her path. (She murmurs a quick thanks.) "You would simply need a jurisdiction under which to claim him..."
"You can have more than one!" pipes up Steven. "And don't worry about overlap, the other pantheons certainly don't."
"Understood," says Wanda. "I have one. It applies."
"Then invoke...I do not know if it translates into any mortal language, but the divine concept of..."
Khonshu says something that makes Elias grab his head and gasp in pain, skull ringing like someone slammed into it with one of the stone pillars.
"All right. Easy now." A hand grips his arm, steadying. "It happens. You're okay."
When Elias's vision un-blurs, he realizes Marc is in front of him again, holding him up and saying general soothing words in a calm, reassuring voice. Jake is doing something similar for Steven.
(...except that Steven's forehead is pressed into Jake's chest while Jake's arms wrap all the way around him, because Steven is, clearly, someone Jake wants to hug.)
"I'm okay," echoes Elias. "Marc. What 'happens'?"
He's afraid the answer will be sometimes our god hits us in the head with a pillar, and we think we have to put up with that.
"Well, he's not really using our languages, you know," pants Steven. "It's just coming out that way in our heads. Sometimes he's got a word that doesn't fit in there."
"...I actually caught this one," says Marc.
"Same," says Jake. "What was it for you?"
Marc sighs. "Asher bahar banu mikol ha’amim."
"Wow, fancy," says Jake. "All I heard was 'dibs'."
"I -- can't," says Elias faintly. "This isn't going to work. Wanda, you seem like a lovely young lady -- when you're not being casually terrifying, at least -- but I can't imagine this taking. I'm a rabbi, for heaven's sake."
"If it helps," says Wanda, "I'm Jewish."
...That would've been a really solid line to end the chapter on. (My one regret about Elias having read up on Wanda before this meeting -- he already knows she's Jewish, so that line doesn't work!)
Another scene where most of the lines survived to the final version, they just got rearranged. For instance, the "divine dibs" exchange happens much earlier in the chapter, so the reader has already been introduced to the idea before it becomes plot-relevant.
Also, wow, Elias himself gets almost no lines in this draft, huh? Good thing that changed in revisions. It's not just that final-version Elias figures out some extra things (like when he picks up on the polycule), it's that he gets to ask more questions and have his own reactions while Wanda/Khonshu/the Knights are arguing about his fate.
A few final disorganized ideas for Khonshu-visit dialogue, most of which didn't stick around:
*
"Sure would be ironic if they had done that."
"That's not what ironic means," says Steven.
"...no, he's right," says Marc. "One of the things that went through my head when Khonshu made his offer was, if I take this deal, Dad will be so disappointed in me. So if Dad ended up taking the same deal? On exactly the same steps, no less? That's situational irony."
Bueno para nada = Good for nothing
"Awfully easy to serve a god who never asks anything of you. I don't mean traditions or historical duties, I mean he never shows up in your living room and tells you someone halfway around the world needs to die, go book the plane tickets."
"Don't worry," says Jake. "Some of us remembered the part of Torah classes where, when a god shows up and starts handing out orders, you get to negotiate."
"When I was dying in the desert -- specifically, right over there -- Khonshu was the god who showed up."
"Very well," says Wanda solemnly. "As the Goddess of parents who have lost children, and children who have lost parents."
...And after that, the end of the file is just Animorphs quotes.
Specifically, the "I'm Jake" paragraph that ended up in chapter 1, and the Marco POV paragraphs that I put on Moon Knight screencaps here.
So that's the early draft! I had a few key scenes clearly figured-out, and a lot more left to fill in.
Including "every single thing that happens in chapter 6." Sometimes I start a fic with a clear vision for where it's going to end. In this one, I started with a clear vision for where the Elias-meets-Khonshu sequence was going to end -- with Wanda calling limited dibs on Elias to get him out of there. But everything about "how they get some closure and wrap up the original Elias-Marc meeting" got figured out later.
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I know why this part of the scene was cut — they’ve got enough to deal with! — but wow <3 Thanks for sharing it here.
Steven is cute <3
I love this.
A valid concern!
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Elias: The way Wendy treated Marc wasn't *that* bad
Also Elias, seeing one of Marc's headmates get hurt: Has Marc been conditioned to just accept serious physical abuse? I'm instantly worried about that for no particular reason